


These Streets.

by Sententia



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-31
Updated: 2012-08-31
Packaged: 2017-11-13 05:57:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/500242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sententia/pseuds/Sententia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When new monsters attack Yami in Domino, Ryuuji turns out to be an unlikely saviour.  Yami/Ryuuji.</p>
            </blockquote>





	These Streets.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SwordofRebecca](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SwordofRebecca/gifts).



> I tried to work this into the story, however it came over as a very bad info dump. Therefore, I’m dumping it here instead ^_^. This takes place post series, and is AU as Yami remains in the present and is separated physically from Yugi. Just writing that here in the notes section makes me cringe, as it SHOULD be built into the story and a reason at least half-heartedly given, but … yeah. Didn’t happen. Fic is also set in the manga-verse.

The demons that stalk through the city flare up in sparks of fiery red and ghost green, searing into the shadows before popping out in grotesque punk-rock caricatures. The magical static in the air draws the life from Yami’s card and gives it shape and form, before his Dark Magician then splutters from existence. 

It's been a long day.

An array of rather polite Egyptian curses bubble beneath his breath, and then Yami is running. The cards that have been summoned to Domino whip through the streets in howls and stomach rumbling cries, sending the helpless citizens deep into their basements. The tail of one monster slams into a building no more than 10 meters from where Yami has choosen momentarily to catch his breath, crouched down beside a hydrant. Rubble and brick explode downwards and Yami closes his eyes, waiting for a blow that never comes.

Instead, there is a screech of burning tires that somehow manage to pierce through the deeper, reverberating sound of steel being stripped from buildings and the rhythmic, hypnotic pounding of too-heavy feet. A dirty, pale-green convertible slams to a stop beside Yami, the dim light of the one remaining headlamp washing over him in an insipid glow. 

“Want a lift?”

Ryuuji’s hair has spilled from his hair band, flowing in a tangled, windy mess around his shoulders. There is something wild about him like this, a sense of constant motion and tension that is captured in his anxious, steady gaze and taut shoulders.

“I won’t say no,” Yami replies dryly.

There is no one out on the road, just abandoned cars and the broken down collateral damage that is Domino’s business district. Yami has ridden with Ryuuji before, but never like this. The other boy barely waits long enough for Yami to scramble in (and wait, does Ryuuji even have his licence?), and then they are roaring through the streets, negotiating corners like they’re optional and makeshifting ramps out of crushed pavement stones and fallen phone boxes. 

“Dare I ask?” Ryuuji asks, green eyes flitting briefly across to him before snapping back in front. Ryuuji curses as the road in front of them suddenly warps upwards in a mash of concrete and cars. Ryuuji spins the steering wheel hard, sending the car into a freewheeling slide before gaining control again just in time. 

“You can probably guess all the important parts,” Yami replies dryly. Magical cards, powerful casters. The end of the world as we know it, for the fourth time in two years. 

Ryuuji throws his head back and laughs. 

“Gotcha.”

And this is Yami’s world, one where dragons and demons find reality through the twisted brilliance of men. He has fought them through his own history and into this current world, has been locked away in his memories for a millennia with only these monsters to preserve his sanity. 

It is easy to forget that the others have not been born into this, especially when Ryuuji manages to possess a fractured calmness while ducking beneath a stray lamppost that this is flung in their direction. 

“You forget,” Ryuuji says simply, a touch of bitterness slipping into his voice, and it is only then that Yami realises that he has spoken out loud. “I _was_ born into this.” Emotion flickers in those deep green depths, shadows of fire and whips and hurt. 

Ryuuji takes the next corner at speed, forging a path through the debris that covers the road. The way in which he takes a dark delight in sending the rubble flying that makes Yami wonder exactly what it is he sees. He remembers the shell of a boy Ryuuji had been when they first met, so stuffed full of someone else’s revenge and hate that his soul had been compressed into a tiny corner of desperation. There had been flickers even then of who Ryuuji really was, flirting around the corners of the carefully crafted persona his father had built. A more subtle sensuality than the mesh and make-up had allowed for, a quirky intellect that had given his barbs their brutal edge. 

For Ryuuji, games have always been life and death, his natural creativity an asset in both manipulating and creating worlds of his very own making. Even with his father gone and that torture house masquerading as gaming shop burnt to the ground, fate has still somehow managed to tie Ryuuji to him. 

There are some things that fire can’t burn away, and Ryuuji has lost everything else.

They speak of it only once, months after the incident and after Ryuuji has just been placed ‘officially’ in the care of a distant aunt in the United States. 

_“I like you better this way,” Ryuuji says, his gaze briefly dropping down to the puzzle around Yami’s neck. “As a friend, rather than as my father’s albatross.” The weight of the puzzle and all the demons that would come with it are left unsaid, but Yami sees them in the shadows that ghost across Ryuuji’s face before they are driven back with a brilliant, wicked smile. “Although, I’ve just had the most awesome idea…”_

Ryuuji slams on the breaks, bringing them into such a sudden stop that Yami’s seatbelt cuts painfully into his chest, but it is a better fate than the flash of fire that erupts in front of them from a side alleyway before retreating back, just as quickly. As one hand flutters over the gear stick, Ryuuji shots him a grin. 

“This has always been my purpose, remember?” The engine roars back into life as they head off backwards, before Ryuuji sends them into a complicated spin that has them somehow half way down the road before Yami’s head settles down again. It’s exhilarating and dangerous, with the same sort of edge and unpredictability that drew Yami to magic and games in the first place.

The driving isn’t particularly bad, either. 

“What do you need?” Ryuuji shouts above the duel roar of the engine and the monster bellowing somewhere behind them.

The question is complex. Where does Yami need to go, what does he need to defeat the monsters that are brutally ripping through Domino? What power does he need, what wisdom does he seek?

The answer, as always, is simple.

“Yugi.” There is nothing that cannot be achieved with the other half of his soul.

Ryuuji’s smirk twists bitter, dark.

“Right. Of course.” Ryuuji’s fingers curl painfully into the leather of the steering wheel and his mouth tightens into a thin line. “Just tell me where to go.”

The school is barely recognisable. The front of the building is tortured and buckled. Gaping, splintered holes are all that remain of the windowed corridors and rooms. Glass crunches beneath the tires as they pull slowly up into what was once the front foyer, although now it serves as a graveyard of desks and broken bookcases. A far away siren crams the air in a desperate wail, while what is left of the sprinkler system splutters out a stream of water that does little to douse the fire that is creeping upwards through the wooden rafters.

Yugi is here. Right now, little else matters. 

Yami has seen destruction like this before. If he narrows his eyes just so, the remains of the stairway twist into a pillar scarred with the face of Ra, and the curled, childish pictures fade into hieroglyphics. Ryuuji, however, is newer to this. He slips more reluctantly out of the car, one hand lingering on the still warm body as he moves around beside Yami. 

“You’re going into that?” Ryuuji sounds distinctly unimpressed.

“Would you believe me if I told you this was the safest place to be right now?” Yami’s dry smile draws a snort from Ryuuji. Still … “Do you think you can get the others here?” Even ancient pharaohs can learn new tricks, and Yami now knows the strength of his friends. That he is even contemplating sending Ryuuji back into the ruined city behind them is indicative of their strength.

“Oh, sure,” Ryuuji says with a flip of his hair, a move that might have been more effective if the strands weren’t caked together with mud and dusted lightly with soot and ash. “I’ll just cruise around the streets with a net, shall I? It’s a good thing I keep a dog whistle in my dash.” The younger boy winces as one of the last remaining windows explodes in a shatter of glass and steam. “Are you sure you want to head in there alone?”

Ryuuji doesn’t face him as he asks the question, much to Yami’s relief. Ryuuji’s strengths lie in his nimble mind and quick fingers, neither of which is suited to the crumbling building. Just as there is an instinctive drive that pulls him into the building because he knows that Yugi is there, an equal force is attempting to repel Ryuuji further away until the time is right for him to return. 

“Ryuuji, promise me you will take care of yourself,” Yami says seriously as he turns in towards him, taking in the way a nearby fire highlights Ryuuji’s hair in streaks of purple and blood red. Grime is smeared across his cheekbones, blurring away the twisted, pantomime of affection that his father had scarred Ryuuji with as a child. Like this, all eyes and hair and emotion, Ryuuji almost looks the child he is supposed to be, instead of the adult he is so good at dressing up as.

“Of course,” Ryuuji says flippantly, a disbelieving smirk rippling across his mouth. “What other way is there to rush into suicidal missions?”

In the time that Yami has known Ryuuji, he has come to know this particular smirk far too well. The thin veneer of arrogance barely conceals the underlying sense of isolation and loneliness. The casual manner in which Ryuuji unleashes it at almost any opportunity -

Yami knows. More than any of the others possibly could, he knows. All those years that Ryuuji had spent growing up with his father, Ryuuji had been locked in a millennium puzzle of his own. Forced to fight off demons and starve of the darkness with nothing more than a brittle flicker of hope and your own failings and mistakes as company, Yami finds himself transported back there in his worst nightmares. Yugi freed them both by finding the pieces that made them whole and slotting them all back into place again, but the shadows, the memories …

It’s a smirk that Yami has grown to despise.

He slides around the bumper into Ryuuji’s prized personal space (he charges per hour for his smile, a higher sacrifice must be made for his air), and it is in anger and despair, lust and in heat, that Yami smothers that smirk away with his mouth, devouring Ryuuji in a heated, frustrated kiss. 

Ryuuji tastes of smoke and destruction, of twisted metal and lost dreams. He isn’t warm like Yugi or full of laughter like Jounouchi, and he is working a hundred different angles even now, most of which belong to his ghost of a father. Shock flashes in dark green eyes before being shuttered away behind a lazy sexuality that is seductive and malleable, however Yami doesn’t want someone he can twist into his perfect fantasy. Yami pushes Ryuuji back against the bumper of the car, digging his fingers painfully into Ryuuji’s arms and aggressively deepening the kiss beyond Ryuuji’s light offering, demanding more. 

“Enough,” he murmurs into Ryuuji’s mouth. 

As much as those jaded eyes like to pretend otherwise, Ryuuji is still only a boy of 16. 

A whimper escapes Ryuuji’s lips, and then ringed fingers are tangling hopelessly in Yami’s hair and all the facades relent beneath Yami’s uncompromising honesty. In their place comes something raw and exposed, so unpolished that it is as though Ryuuji is an unfinished product instead of the exotic, expensive prize he often poses as. The desperation is much more enticing, and a growl rumbles possessively up through Yami’s throat.

“Promise me,” Yami demands hoarsely when the kiss ends, his mouth lingering over Ryuuji’s. 

Ryuuji laughs again, but this time his disbelief is tinged by emotion a little more childish than despair. “Ok,” he says, helplessly and with a shake of his head. “Ok.” 

Yami’s fingers are still hooked in Ryuuji’s belt, trapping him in close between Yami and the hood of the car. It is all he can do to do release him and take a step back, although he takes Ryuuji’s gaze with him even as Yami returns to him his space.

“Aren’t you going to ask me the same?” After all, it isn’t as though Yami hasn’t been on Ryuuji’s mind for a very long time. Yami is as familiar with Ryuuji’s lingering gazes as he is Ryuuji’s array of smirks.

“Where’s the fun in that?” There is more space now, as Yami backs into the building and Ryuuji vaults over the still closed door into the car, a wicked smile and a gleam in his eyes that Yami thinks is entirely (hypnotically) inappropriate. “You’ve somehow managed to survive this long without it. I’ll just wish you luck, instead.”

Yami barely gets his hand up in time to catch the pair of dice that race towards his head.

“Exploding dice,” Ryuuji says easily, his smile widening just a touch as Yami’s heart skips a beat. “You’d be amazed at how useful they can be.” If they don’t blow your head off, first. Right now, Yami isn’t sure which the more dangerous option is: the building or Ryuuji.

In a puff of dust, the convertible speeds back off into the streets, and all Yami is treated to is a backwards wave. Yami’s eyes stay there even after the car has expertly navigated a corner and disappeared from view.

_Well._

His gaze hardens as part of the building behind him collapses, and a painful tug on his conscious reminds him that someone very precious is still caught inside.

He tosses the dice in the air before catching them.

Gingerly.

Time to save the world.


End file.
